Lancer
Lancer is a nefarious Darkner kid and minor antagonist in Chapter 1 of Deltarune. While his initial goal is to destroy the protagonists before they can reach the Eastern Fountain and seal it, he eventually joins the team and becomes a tritagonist. Profile Appearance Lancer is a short and rotund blue-and-white Darkner with a teardrop-shaped head and large black spade for a face. He has a large mouth, though it often appears small, and a prominent blue tongue that he usually sticks out. According to Kris, it is difficult to tell Lancer's body from his clothes. For example, it isn't clear if Lancer is wearing a blue hooded cowl and the black spade is is a shadow, if the spade is a visor built into his hood, or if all of his "outfit" is just part of his body. Personality Lancer is very childish and generally immature in his behavior and speech. He is easily preoccupied with childish games and pursuits, and likes hiding things and irritating people. He generally assumes that the party will naively follow instructions on signs he writes. He has a poor sense of direction and gets lost in mazes quite easily. He can be easily intimidated by strong enemies like K. Round, although he remains calm and jovial while doing so. Lancer values and idolizes his father, King. He tries to project a tough facade in imitation of him, hoping to be designated "son of the month," and caring for his father's well-being and approval despite being neglected. Aware that his father's subjects don't like him and only put up with him due to King's orders, he seeks real friendship and gradually becomes an ally to the party despite his initially hostile role. Attacks ; First Battle * Lancer moves up and down on the right side of the Bullet Board. After a bit, he will honk and do a wheelie, charging forward. * Lancer charges across the bottom of the Bullet Board, then returns from above the Bullet Board, shooting spade shaped projectiles at Kris's SOUL. ; Second Battle * Susie jumps on top of Lancer. Then, Lancer jumps over the top of the Bullet Board while Susie launches ax projectiles that travel towards the right of the Bullet Board. * Summons spade projectiles at random locations at the top of the screen which travel downward through the Bullet Board. * If Susie is put to sleep, Lancer uses the attacks from the first encounter. ; Third Battle * Summons spade projectiles at random locations at the top of the screen which travel downward through the Bullet Board. * Summons spade projectiles from the sides of the Bullet Board. * If Susie is low on health or after three turns have passed, he will launch spade projectiles from the top of the screen that actively avoid the SOUL. This attack gradually decreases in intensity until the end of the fight. Main Story Chapter 1 Lancer first appeared as a dark silhouette, glimpsed a few times as Kris journeyed through the ?????? area. After Kris reunites with Susie, Lancer attacks them both, flinging a large numbers of spades at them until they escape. Lancer properly reveals himself by ramming his bike into a hooded figure who has just introduced The Prophecy to the party. A brief battle ensues, in which Kris and Susie can either attack him, knocking him off-screen if his HP reaches 0, or prolong the battle so that his bike "runs out of fuel" and he leaves to get home before dinner. Lancer appears repeatedly throughout the Field leaving numerous written signs intended to mislead and warn the party. Towards the end of the Field, Susie tires of his japes and decides to scare him and teach him how to really be threatening - Lancer however takes it as friendly criticism, and begins to think of her as a role model. Later while crossing the Great Board, Lancer reveals that he has put Susie's lesson to practice with an intimidating laugh, as he threatens to smash the party into blood, before asking Susie if it was scary, endearing her to him in the process. At the end of the Board, Lancer is too afraid of a K. Round to cross past it into the Forest, and the party has to defeat it for him. Ralsei gently admonishes Susie for making the fight harder with her attacks and asks her to stop fighting enemies. Susie is annoyed by this and decides to be a bad guy, joining Lancer's side. The two proceed to pose as annoyances to Kris and Ralsei throughout Forest, tricking them into buying a fake cookie (which still heals HP) and getting them to design a weapon to "thrash your own ass". Susie and Lancer eventually build the designed weapon out of junk, but decide to blow it up as mockery and then fight the party themselves. Kris and Ralsei win this fight by either persuading Lancer to no longer fight, or by injuring Lancer to the point that Susie becomes concerned for him. Susie decides to rejoin the party at this point. Lancer also "joins the party", although in practice he merely tags along from a small distance. Shortly thereafter however, Lancer becomes concerned about the possibility of the party fighting King. Fearful of either the party killing his father, or his father killing the party, Lancer flees back to the castle. When the main party is subdued by Rudinn Rangers while chasing him, Lancer steps in and has them imprisoned rather than being executed. He elects to have them kept in the dungeon "for eternity", which he claims is "Far better than death." Susie breaks out of her cell and confronts Lancer on his seeming betrayal, and the two fight until it becomes apparent that neither wants to hurt the other. Susie swears to Lancer that she and the other Heroes don't have to hurt King, and Lancer runs off, relieved. He goes to the roof of Card Castle and attempts to soften his dad up in advance. When the party ascend Card Castle and finally meet King, Lancer is in the process of explaining the situation. However, upon seeing the party, King becomes furious and tells Lancer that he has failed in his mission and that the Lightners are "scum". Lancer disagrees, and King holds him up in a rage, and threatens to drop him off the parapet of the castle to make the Lightners stand down. Lancer shocks his own dad with a spade bullet to King's back and flees the encounter, letting the party freely fight the King. At the end of the fight, if the party has never defeated a Darkner through fighting, Lancer saves them by overthrowing King: He storms in with a large number of Darkner troops, and locks King in the Prison Cell in Card Castle. He then becomes the new King of the Dark World, leaving the other three Kings still locked away. Relationships King King is Lancer's father. Despite this, they do not have a close relationship, as King spends little time with his son and barely seems to care about him, threatening to drop him off of the top of Card Castle if the party does not obey him. However, King does seem to care about the public treatment of Lancer, asking Darkners such as Rudinns to take care of him. Lancer both fears and respects his father and follows his orders very obediently. Ralsei Throughout Chapter 1, Lancer continuously compliments and seems to enjoy and care about Ralsei. Even when he's attempting to be "the bad guy," he calls Ralsei things such as "sweet basket of eggs," "delicious little apple," and "smart genius." He even goes so far as to call theirs a "thrash-based relationship," and asks Kris and Susie to say goodbye to him as they leave the Dark World, although Ralsei is not leaving. Rouxls Kaard Lancer considers Rouxls his "lesser dad." He is often looked after and fed by Rouxls, who acts as his caretaker due to his father's indifference. Lancer will ask Rouxls to listen to his MP3 player often, which the latter dislikes due to all Lancer's songs being cartoon splat noises. Nevertheless, Rouxls cares about Lancer's well-being, despite pretending not to. Susie Lancer begins to look up to Susie after she scares him, aspiring to be as intimidating as she is. After Ralsei lectures Susie about being a hero, Susie joins Lancer's team, sharing evil plans in order to stop the main party. As the two work together, they develop a friendship. However, when Lancer realizes that either Susie or King will be hurt in their eventual battle, he sends the party to prison for eternity. After fighting and reassuring from Susie, Lancer is confident that she can find a peaceful solution. When Susie and Kris must leave the Dark World, they still share a friendship and he will mention that she and Kris are always welcome. Gallery Lancer face joining.png | Lancer's face upon joining the team Trivia * True to the symbols in his design, Lancer corresponds to the suit of spades. ** When CHECKed during the first fight against the party, the flavor text says, "Not to call a spade a spade, but he's a spade." ** At one point, he calls himself "Dark Jack Lancer," reflecting his role as the King's diminutive Jack of Spades. Lancer's design is itself derived from the Jack of Spades design by kanotynes, whose card set designs were used for multiple characters. ** Lancer has a small hand trowel, a type of actual spade, in his room. * During the protagonist's first fight with Lancer, Kris can warn Lancer of Susie's upcoming attack, or choose to compliment him. However, Lancer cannot be spared through compliments alone. ** Kris's first compliment lowers Lancer's attack power. ** Their second compliment is seen as insincere and raises Lancer's attack power. ** The third compliment confuses Lancer, who, uncertain of its sincerity, attacks sideways, having no apparent effect. *** After this, whenever Kris gets hit, the damage counter will appear sideways. ** The fourth time, Lancer absorbs Kris's words into his skin, also having no apparent effect. * Lancer's sprite appears to be less detailed than the other characters, and does not have a walking animation. * Lancer labelled his team name raffle paper "Lancer", which he quickly changes to "The Lancer Fan Club" to avoid confusion. * Lancer has to take a shower each time he says a "bad word," as commanded by his father. * Lancer seems to have strange and unusual eating habits. Rouxls Kaard claims that whenever King forgets to feed his son, Lancer cries like a baby bird until Kaard feeds him worms. ** Lancer has not eaten a Dark Candy before being given one by Susie, because his father did not let him. ** When Ralsei points out Lancer's enemy team composition is similar to drinking only three glasses of milk for dinner, Lancer does not find it at all unusual to do so. ** He has a honeypot full of salsa that he only pretends to eat hidden in a tree stump; when asked, he does not know what it's made of. More salsa is stored in a hole he dug in his room. * He is not yet old enough to ride a motorcycle. Instead, Lancer rides a bike on fire, which appears to have training wheels. ** Lancer's bike can also absorb the Pacify spell. When Ralsei casts the Pacify spell during the fight with Susie and Lancer while Susie is asleep, Lancer's bike will absorb the spell. Then his bike will "get tired?????". * Lancer, along with Rudinn, Hathy, Clover, King, Jevil and the uncredited King of Diamonds, was designed by kanotynes. ** With the exception of Jevil, all of kanotynes's characters were fully designed by March 2012 - 6 years prior to the release of Deltarune. *** According to kanotynes, the characters were originally created for her design class, having volunteered to draw 52 unique playing card designs. *** Lancer's earliest design was first posted on Tumblr on March 15, 2012 as a character on a jack of spades playing card. ** When asked what Lancer was, they weren't sure but suggested that he was a Kewpie doll. References pl:Lancer ru:Лансер